On Wed, 29 Aug 2007 09:08:48 -0500, Melba's Jammin'
wrote:

In article ,
"modom (palindrome guy)" wrote:

He's hauling a hog to be slaughtered. A pastured hog who ate
grasshoppers and crickets and snakes and acorns, not agribusiness
hogchow and antibiotics. I'm getting half a hog.

That's 100 pounds of pure pig. I'm getting a side of ribs, a whole
loin, jowls (Guanciale!), a Boston butt, belly (bacon!), a passel of
ground pork (sausage, anyone?), and a whole fresh ham.

The ultimate plan is to cure the ham. I'm going to make prosciutto!

I'll report in March or April.

Living on this benighted prairie sometimes has its pleasures.

What's the price if you don't mind me asking? Price on the hoof or
hanging weight or wrapped and butchered? I'm assuming they'll butcher
to your specs? I cry for happy you. My pigmeat guy
(http://www.amorpork.com) will be here on Saturday -- your post reminded
me to check, thank you. Great bacon and sausage patties. Links are
dry. I've not tried his ham.

It's pretty pricey. About $4.50 a pound. The final bill is yet to
come, so the estimate is rough. The price is for butchered and
wrapped chunks o' pig. He and I discussed the cuts I wanted and what
I listed above is a rough laundry list of what I came up with. Ruhlman
and Polcyn's "Charcuterie" passed before my eyes as I ordered the
jowls and the belly and the ham. The pig man ordinarily smokes bacon
for his customers. Hams, too. He was amused and tolerant that I
wanted that privilege for myself.

Of course, prosciutto isn't smoked, and now I have to find a place
that's 60 F to hang the meat for 5-6 months. I need a cave.
--

modom

--
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On Wed, 29 Aug 2007 08:34:30 -0700, Sheldon wrote:

"modom (palindrome guy)" wrote:
He's hauling a hog to be slaughtered. A pastured hog who ate
grasshoppers and crickets and snakes and acorns, not agribusiness
hogchow and antibiotics. I'm getting half a hog.

That's 100 pounds of pure pig. I'm getting a side of ribs, a whole
loin, jowls (Guanciale!), a Boston butt, belly (bacon!), a passel of
ground pork (sausage, anyone?), and a whole fresh ham.

The ultimate plan is to cure the ham. I'm going to make prosciutto!

I think you'd be much sager to roast that particular fresh ham, and
with minimal adulteration... save the curing (laboratory
experimentation) for a typical run of the sty stupidmarket ham....
what you're proposing reminds of those pinheads who wanna marinate
USDA Prime beef steak... may as well have a pepperoni entree.

Ruhlman and Polcyn in "Charcuterie" advise differently. They write:
"This ham is in the style of the most famous hams, prosciutto di Parma
and San Daniele, Bayonne, and Serrano. ...[T]he quality of the end
result is entirely dependent on the hog, where it lived, what it ate,
how fat it grew. We highly recommend this recipe and technique to
anyone who has access to carefully grown or organically raised hogs.

The recipe calls for a 12 - 15 pound fresh ham and a long cure. We
shall see.
--

modom

--
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modom (palindrome guy) wrote:
On Wed, 29 Aug 2007 09:08:48 -0500, Melba's Jammin'
wrote:

In article ,
"modom (palindrome guy)" wrote:

He's hauling a hog to be slaughtered. A pastured hog who ate
grasshoppers and crickets and snakes and acorns, not agribusiness
hogchow and antibiotics. I'm getting half a hog.

That's 100 pounds of pure pig. I'm getting a side of ribs, a whole
loin, jowls (Guanciale!), a Boston butt, belly (bacon!), a passel of
ground pork (sausage, anyone?), and a whole fresh ham.

The ultimate plan is to cure the ham. I'm going to make prosciutto!

I'll report in March or April.

Living on this benighted prairie sometimes has its pleasures.

What's the price if you don't mind me asking? Price on the hoof or
hanging weight or wrapped and butchered? I'm assuming they'll butcher
to your specs? I cry for happy you. My pigmeat guy
(http://www.amorpork.com) will be here on Saturday -- your post reminded
me to check, thank you. Great bacon and sausage patties. Links are
dry. I've not tried his ham.

It's pretty pricey. About $4.50 a pound. The final bill is yet to
come, so the estimate is rough. The price is for butchered and
wrapped chunks o' pig. He and I discussed the cuts I wanted and what
I listed above is a rough laundry list of what I came up with. Ruhlman
and Polcyn's "Charcuterie" passed before my eyes as I ordered the
jowls and the belly and the ham. The pig man ordinarily smokes bacon
for his customers. Hams, too. He was amused and tolerant that I
wanted that privilege for myself.

Of course, prosciutto isn't smoked, and now I have to find a place
that's 60 F to hang the meat for 5-6 months. I need a cave.
--

modom



How much per pound for just a hanging half-a-pig? In other words, are
you paying a fortune for him to cut it up? And does he weigh it before
or after he cuts and wraps it? Do you get all the scraps?

As much as I hate it, I agree with Sheldon about the fresh ham being a
better use than curing it. I've butchered hogs with my dad, and we
cured the hams and bacon. The meat was extraordinary (you could almost
taste the crickets, LOL) but the ham was not nearly as good as what we
could buy already cured from a good butcher. The bacon OTOH was
wonderful. And the fresh lard made the best pound cakes ever.

Bob

On Wed, 29 Aug 2007 22:41:51 -0500, "modom (palindrome guy)"
wrote:


Of course, prosciutto isn't smoked, and now I have to find a place
that's 60 F to hang the meat for 5-6 months. I need a cave.
--

modom

One idea I am hearing about on eGullet, on the Charcuterie thread, is
the idea of using one of those wine refrigerators as a place to cure
stuff.

Seems it will maintain the correct temperature, and will also maintain
the humidity needed for some items.

This might be in my future.

Christine

"modom (palindrome guy)" ha scritto nel messaggio
...
It's pretty pricey. About $4.50 a pound. The final bill is yet to
come, so the estimate is rough. The price is for butchered and
wrapped chunks o' pig.

Just in case you are curious, I bought similar last autumn and paid ?8
(+-$11) per kilo (2.2 lb.) but they did not butcher it as I asked. I was
pretty disappointed because I wanted to corn a ham. It is, however, the
best pork I have tasted in decades.

--
Food and fashion
http://www.judithgreenwood.com

Sheldon wrote:

If your Cardiologist made that statement he or she is an imbecile...
the lean portion of either pork or beef contains the same quantity of
cholesterol by weight.

Doctors are not nutritionists.

On Aug 30, 6:27?am, Goomba38 wrote:
Sheldon wrote:
If your Cardiologist made that statement he or she is an imbecile...
the lean portion of either pork or beef contains the same quantity of
cholesterol by weight.

Doctors are not nutritionists.

Has not a whit to do with being a nutritionist. Has to do with basic
intelligence and common sense... actually all six of my cat's brains
can ascertain within nanoseconds that porterhouse contains more
cholesterol than round... and none have a diploma.

Sheldon Lips

Sheldon wrote:
On Aug 30, 6:27?am, Goomba38 wrote:
Sheldon wrote:
If your Cardiologist made that statement he or she is an imbecile...
the lean portion of either pork or beef contains the same quantity of
cholesterol by weight.
Doctors are not nutritionists.

Has not a whit to do with being a nutritionist. Has to do with basic
intelligence and common sense... actually all six of my cat's brains
can ascertain within nanoseconds that porterhouse contains more
cholesterol than round... and none have a diploma.

Sheldon Lips

I'm not disputing that porterhouses contain more cholesterol. I just
find it odd that people expect doctors to be nutritionists who can spout
off fat contents or nutritional values of particular pieces of meat for
some odd reason? I can't grasp where they got the idea that they should be?
I just used your post to voice this statement. It was not a statement
about what you said exactly...

In article ,
"modom (palindrome guy)" wrote:

It's pretty pricey. About $4.50 a pound.

And probably worth it. Have you had pigmeat from him before?


The final bill is yet to come, so the estimate is rough. The price
is for butchered and wrapped chunks o' pig. He and I discussed the
cuts I wanted
modom


That was the part I liked about ordering a pig (believe I did it once)
or a quarter of beef -- I could specify thickness of chops and steaks,
how I wanted the round steaks cut, weight of ground beef, etc.

--
-Barb, Mother Superior, HOSSSPoJ
For your listening pleasu http://www.am1500.com/pcast/80509.mp3 --
from the MN State Fair, 8-29-07

Steve Wertz wrote:

A chicken thigh, per 100grams, has about 33% more cholesterol
than a country style rib (but it has less fat).

Chicken skin is a killer....good snack.
http://i10.tinypic.com/4q8ab2e.jpg

-sw

That picture made me drool. Omigod, I love fried chicken skin, lightly
salted. I also love pork fat. There is no cure for me, I should just
jump off a bridge. My cholesterol is always good though. Go figure.

Becca

modom (palindrome guy) wrote:

belly (bacon!)

Here is a nice article by the estimable Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
about bacon among other things; there is a recipe, too:
http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/foodanddrink/hughfearnleywhittingstall/story/0,,1945134,00.html.

Victor

On Thu, 30 Aug 2007 10:25:40 -0500, Melba's Jammin'
wrote:

In article ,
"modom (palindrome guy)" wrote:

It's pretty pricey. About $4.50 a pound.

And probably worth it. Have you had pigmeat from him before?

Not from this purveyor, but I've had pastured pork from others who
offer similar meats in this region. There are several like minded
types around here. This guy is a cohort of the egg lady, about whom I
have spoken in the past, so I'm up for the delivery.

Next time, I want to score some feral pork, but I'll wait till the
Guanciale from this batch is cured before proceeding. (And I'll have
to check on the recommendations of the experts about trichinosis and
killing the little wormy parasitic *******s via cold and/or heat, but
that's another matter.)

That was the part I liked about ordering a pig (believe I did it once)
or a quarter of beef -- I could specify thickness of chops and steaks,
how I wanted the round steaks cut, weight of ground beef, etc.

D said she could tell that I had bonded with the pig man after our
call was done. We had discussed packing the ground pork in one-pound
portions, making a loin out of the chops, not grinding the jowls,
letting me smoke the bacon and cure the ham, and sundry pig projects.
As I said earlier, he was really nice about my pork curing visions. It
was just a phone call. It would have been nicer if it was done face
to face. I hope it's the beginning of a relationship. We shall see.

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

On Thu, 30 Aug 2007 10:33:50 -0500, Becca wrote:

Steve Wertz wrote:

A chicken thigh, per 100grams, has about 33% more cholesterol
than a country style rib (but it has less fat).

Chicken skin is a killer....good snack.
http://i10.tinypic.com/4q8ab2e.jpg

-sw

That picture made me drool. Omigod, I love fried chicken skin, lightly
salted. I also love pork fat. There is no cure for me, I should just
jump off a bridge. My cholesterol is always good though. Go figure.

Then don't jump.
--

modom

--
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On Thu, 30 Aug 2007 23:51:56 +0200, (Victor Sack)
wrote:

modom (palindrome guy) wrote:

belly (bacon!)

Here is a nice article by the estimable Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
about bacon among other things; there is a recipe, too:
http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/foodanddrink/hughfearnleywhittingstall/story/0,,1945134,00.html.

Victor

Thanks, Victor. I don't know enough about heritage hog breeds to make
a judgment. In that area I rely on expert guidance.
Fearnley-Whittingsall recommends Gloucester Old Spots, Saddlebacks or
Middle Whites, but my local supplier offers meat from red wattle hogs.
He has an MS in animal husbandry, so I'll take his word for it till
better evidence comes along. And this may be a matter of
transAtlantic local climate and breed issues, anyway.

I haven't taken posesion of any pork from them yet, much less tasted
it, so I can't vouch for the quality. But here's their URL:
http://homepage.mac.com/nbmelson/Personal1.html
--

modom

--
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In article om,
Sheldon wrote:

snips

"Red meat/white meat" is not a scientific catagory, it's a culinary
term, highly judgemental at best.

http://www.answers.com/topic/white-m...=entertainment

If you scroll farther down on that web page, you will find a more
physiological definition for white vs. dark meat. The executive
summary: Muscles that get worked extensively (legs) contain more
myoglobin to perform aerobic exercise and are dark as a result. Muscles
that don't get worked as much (chicken breast) contain less myoglobin
and appear lighter. Modom's pig from the pasture probably got lots more
exercise than the factory-raised swine, so the meat will be much darker
than the pale pork chops that are generally found in the supermarket.

Cindy

--
C.J. Fuller

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